Tuesday, November 27, 2007

I used to be such a good, shy, demure little cook; baking things exactly as the recipe stated. Ruthlessly measuring and leveling off the cups and spoons. Because, as many bakers will tell you, if you mess with that magical chemistry that happens between the the flour, the sugar, the salt, etc - LIFE AS WE MAY KNOW IT MAY CEASE AND IT WILL ALL BE YOUR FAULT. Or worse, your cake won't rise.

But in one afternoon, I became a new person.

It happened fairly quickly. I realized I was one egg short of the recipe (you know, as in "She's one sandwich short of a picnic?). So I put in a little less flour.Then I saw that the recipe wanted me to use almond flavoring, but I trumped that with my vanilla.Next to go was the cream of tartar, mostly because I didn't feel like digging it out. I mean, after the egg and the almond flavoring, the world was pretty much doomed, right? So why waste 45 precious seconds trying to find that little bottle?And then...then I got even crazier. I saw the cinnamon in my cabinet when I went to grab the bag of sugar. One minute I was reaching for the white powdery goodness, the next I was laughing manically with a spice bottle in my hand. Luckily for The Professor's students, I remembered to go back for the sugar.If the world ends tomorrow, I'll apologize for not going back for the cream of tartar.

This was originally a rolled cookie recipe - so if you'd like to clean your cookie cutters later, go ahead and refrigerate it for about a couple of hours, then shape it into logs and cut it into cookies.

If - like me - you are way to lazy to do all that, drop them with spoons onto a greased cookie sheet. And pray that they don't spread too much.

Now, if you are one 1/16th of the cinnamon freak that I am, you will grab your cinnamon sugar and shake a little over each cookie. Then you'll realize you're drooling over the thought of cinnamon sugar and feel a little ashamed.

Bake for about 10 minutes, but these burn pretty quickly - so keep an eye on them. OR THE WORLD COULD END.

Notes:I doubled the original recipe, so this makes a lot of cookies - about 4 dozen. But I'm sure that The Professor needed the challenge of 19 year olds on a sugar high, so I refuse to feel guilty.

I started off with the oven at 350F, but turned it up a bit because the cookies were spreading a wee bit too much. I have no idea if this is why they stopped spreading, but I'm going to claim it as a another moment of genius.

The recipe I was looking at is in the "Betty Crocker New Cookbook". I'm not sure what my brain actually saw - but that's where I started from.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Can you call something Shepherd’s Pie if:A) You’ve never seen an actual, honest-to-goodness shepherd in your life?B) You’re pretty sure there isn’t a shepherd within easy driving distance?C) You will not be feeding said Pie to anyone who remotely resembles a Shepherd?

To be sure I wasn’t breaking any laws that would get me banned from Ireland for life, I told The Professor to bring out his robe and carry a staff for a while, and maybe shoo the cats from one room to another. I didn’t get very far with any of those requests.

So, Ireland, I want you to know that I tried to be as close as possible to a shepherd, but my husband didn’t feel like “playing any wacky games tonight”.Oh, and I had no lamb, so I made do with ground beef.I’m losing you, aren’t I, Ireland?But I love me some Jameson’s in my coffee, and I absolutely adore the color green. So please let me come back one day if I promise not to call this Shepherd’s Pie anymore?

Melt the butter in a large skillet on medium heat. Add the carrots and cook for about 3-4 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Cook for about 8-10 minutes or until vegetables are mostly softened.

When the meat is finished browning, drain in a colander and add to the vegetables with the can of tomatoes and the thyme. Pour in the gravy, and mix thoroughly. Add the pepper and pour the whole she-bang into a casserole dish.Spoon the mashed potatoes on top, spreading to cover.Bake for about 30-40 minutes.If you really want to rock someone’s world, serve with some cheese grated on top. OR, add the cheese and pop under the broiler til it gets kinda crispy and yummy.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

I've been working on making my own taco seasoning. I know I have all the right spices in my cabinet. Getting them together in beautiful harmony...it's not as easy I would like. I'm coming around to the realization that everything which flows from my magical spoon isn't automatically perfect. Therapy will start soon.

And by the way, "I've been working on my own taco seasoning" means that I've made exactly two attempts that included actually paying attention to what I was doing.

So here is attempt #2. I thought it was pretty good, if a bit spicy. The Professor was....well, the word "appalled" comes to mind. But 1) he doesn't care for any kind of Tex-Mex food and 2) he doesn't like anything remotely spicy. So I don't think his opinions count here.

I made the switch from chili powder to chipotle chili powder (oh! How I love thee!) this time, and that change is going to stick around.

I used all of this on about 2 1/2 pounds of ground meat (or meat substitute for the Best Friend). I think I'll cut back the next time. Because really, you shouldn't have to funnel margaritas down your throat to put out the fire in your mouth.Or should you?

Mix it all together in a bowl and sprinkle on the cooked beef in a skillet.I dissolved about a tablespoon of cornstarch in a cup or so of water, and then added that to the skillet and cooked the whole thing for about 2 or 3 minutes. This didn't really work to get the "wet" consistency I was going for, so I'm going to work on that too.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Add together:Five girls, all teetering on the age of the big 3-0;Two nights of girly-girl-ness that made The Professor glad we don't all live in the same city;I didn't keep count, but there may have been a celebratory drink - or 1,000 - handed around;

And you get:One very happy Birthday Girl

Breakfast for my weekend guests needed to be simple. But full of all the kinds of food that would be guaranteed to go straight to our thighs and make us relish each and every bite while secretly wondering if any of our Abs of Steel videos are still lying around.

Breakfast would have gone perfectly, but in all the festivities I forgot to make it. So instead of letting the casserole sit in the fridge overnight, gently soaking in the basil-infused eggs and milk, it was hastily slapped together and pushed in the oven.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, basil and a twist or two of fresh cracked pepper together until frothy.Place half of the bread cubes in the bottom of a casserole dish.Sprinkle the cooked bacon and sausage over the bread.Sprinkle half of the cheese over the top.Layer the rest of the bread on top of that.Pour the egg mixture slowly over the entire casserole, making sure to cover the entire dish.

Cover the casserole and place it in the fridge overnight.

Note: If the beer and cold meds hadn't gotten in the way, I would have remembered to do this the night before. Learn from my mistakes.

Preheat the oven to 375.Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top of the casserole.Cover very loosely with foil. And I mean loosely - we don't want to leave any of that lovely cheese behind, because then it sticks to the foil and I'm forced to stand over the dish picking it off while everyone waits to be fed. Maybe I just revealed too much personal information?

Bake for about 45-50 minutes, making sure that the middle is completely done before serving.

Notes:I've made this with cinnamon or alspice in place of the basil, and it's just as yummy.Many times I've made this with veggie-sausage patties that I nuke and then crumble. Many people never noticed that they weren't eating real sausage. I usually use about 6 of the frozen veggie patties. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of those flavored veggie burgers - like the sun-dried tomato and basil versions - would work even better.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

At around 8:30 this morning, I got an email from The Professor letting me know we’d be having an overnight guest. I wasn’t going to be home until about 7 PM – five minutes before the two of them got home. I started thinking about what my cozy love nest currently looks like:

The weekend’s newspapers are all over the coffee table and love seat.

Every pair of shoes that I’ve kicked off at the front door in the last week are...under the table by the front door.

The junk mail on the dining room table has started breeding. That is the only explanation for the quantity of worthless credit card and pressure-washing offers we now own.

All the boxes of ingredients needed to make the snacks I promised the girls for this weekend are sitting on the kitchen counter – because there isn’t room for one more thing in the pantry.

Oh, and I needed to find dinner.

So, for the next 8 hours at work, my brain percolated on what I had in the house that could be transformed into a fast meal. Pretty much, it was going to be vegetables, since the meat is all frozen. Hopefully cooked vegetables.

This vegetable skillet thing is something I do to clean out my fridge every now and then, and it always tastes different because I use different seasonings and different fresh/canned/frozen vegetables. It’s starting to get a little chilly outside, so I decided to use my cumin (oh! I how I love thee!). This stuff is yummy when fresh, it’s yummy if it sits on the stove cooking for a while, and it’s yummy the next day as leftovers for lunch.

Luckily, the guest of the night is someone I could feed celery and peanut butter to, and he’d be happy. I love friends like this.

Vegetable a la Goulash

1 cup uncooked basmati rice

olive oil

3 carrots, sliced

2 parsnips, sliced

1 onion, sliced

2 stalks of celery, sliced

1 cup? Frozen spinach (I just grabbed a big handful out of the bag in the freezer)

2 tsp minced garlic

4 oz can of mushrooms

1 can whole tomatoes with juice (I ran my knife through them to cut them up a bit)

½ tsp crushed red pepper

1 tsp marjoram

2 tsp paprika

3+ tsp cumin

7 ½ ounces (1/2 can) tomato sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Start the rice cooking immediately; it’s going to take the longest (boil 2 1/2 cups of water with a dash of oil and salt, add the rice, stir and cover). Or just use minute rice later.

Slice the carrots, parsnips, onion and celery and put them in a large sauté pan with the olive oil. Cook for about 5 or 6 minutes, until the carrots and parsnips are beginning to soften.

Add the garlic to the pan and sauté for another minute or two.

Add the drained mushrooms, the UN-drained tomatoes and the seasonings. Taste and adjust the seasonings (I needed lots more cumin and a little more black pepper).

Add the spinach (yes, frozen) and stir.

If you need more liquid (I did), add the tomato sauce - and maybe a dash of that wine you’ve been sipping. Let it simmer in the skillet while you refill your wine glass, set the table and make small talk for about 10 or 15 minutes.

Serve over the rice, while you desperately hope that it’s good enough to keep your impromptu dinner guest from noticing that your stepson left behind ONE sock from his weekend visit. And that it’s under the coffee table.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

My girls are coming to visit next weekend! I've known them since the 7th grade, and they're coming down for a couple of days because 2 of us are turning 30. There's going to be a lot of food as we try to forget about it.

I had a serious thing against cream of mushroom soup when I was growing up; the canned stuff never looked all that great unless they were mixed up in a tuna casserole. Eating it as a soup seemed incomprehensible. There have been a few homemade versions floating around out there, lately. This Creamy Mushroom Soup with Sauteed Chantrelles looks like it's about time to break down my mental walls.

Something very much like these Garlic Roasted Green Beans are probably going to make it - in some form - to my (very small) Thanksgiving table this year. We served Haricot Verts at the restaurant in a garlicy oniony olive oil, and I loved them.

Sometimes I think I could live off of dips and appetizers. Dips like Hot Swiss Chard Artichoke seem like a little bowl of heaven. Maybe I'll have to test that theory out one day.

This is just plain scary. Frightening. Slashfood linked to an article on the 88 most unhealthy fast food items. It looks like it's completely based on trans fats. I was happy to see that at least my beloved Taco Bell's soft tacos (please don't think less of me) won't kill me as fast as all those french fries and onion rings would have.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Warning: there are a lot of superlatives in this post. And I never use one more than needed.

About once a year, my in-laws come to visit for a few days. One of the benefits is that they are really good cooks. The first time they visited, my father-in-law started to make gnocchi, which I learned is a family necessity. When he got into my kitchen and saw my spice cabinet and the stand mixer, he made a list of things to make. Huge meatballs, an incredible vodka sauce, pepper biscuits, meaty tomato sauce, biscotti...I felt like I was in a restaurant. Except I had to wash the dishes.

When they make gnocchi, they make a ton. And I mean a TON. I didn't realize where they had all gone, until I looked in my freezer after they left. There was a huge bag of them, ready for us to gorge ourselves on whenever we felt the urge. Which, to be frank, was very soon.

These are not made of potato; it's pretty much flour, ricotta and egg. Simplicity that shines.

So, I have a few left in my freezer. Just enough for The Professor and I for dinner. I've seen a few recipes around for pan fried gnocchi. I have some butter and a hunk of Parmesan that needs to be used.

It's like fate walked into my kitchen and made dinner for me.But I still had to do the dishes.

I'm not going to do the step-by-step on the gnocchi process; you'll have to get them on your own.In fact, I have no clue how much of anything I used. I'm not going to be much help for the recipe. But that's because my brain is still busy thinking of the buttery taste left in my mouth.

Pan Fried Gnocchi

In a skillet, melt about 3 or 4 tablespoons of butter. Take about 40-45 {frozen} gnocchi (these are pretty small) and add them to the skillet, making sure they're as separated as possible. Otherwise as they start to get soft, they'll become more of a gnocchi pancake. Which will still be yummy, but not what I was going for. Tonight, anyway.

Now, the hard part - don't start messing with the pretty little suckers! Let them get all soaked in butter, let them sing to the gods of dairy. You can't see it, but they are busy. Busy getting themselves all crispy and ready. Because they know what's coming.

After about 5 or 6 minutes, their little bottoms are going to be turning a luscious golden brown. Grab a clove or two of garlic, and mince it and sprinkle it all over the pan. Now you can start flipping them over. I ended up just pulling out my tongs, because the spatula gave me fits. After I flipped them, I cut up a couple more tablespoons of butter and dropped it around the pan.

Now, to keep myself from popping a couple of under-fried pieces of yumminess in my mouth, I got busy grating a few tablespoons of Parmesan. By the time I was done, my pieces of goodness were ready. I slid them on my plate, sprinkled the Parmesan. And sat down to one of the best simple dinners I've had in a while.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

I’ve had this whole chicken sitting in my fridge for a little over 48 hours now. I haven’t cut it up or anything. I was starting to think I should just name it. Then I realized how silly that was. And since I wasn’t even drinking at the time, I had no reasonable excuse to tell my husband I was going to be cooking up a piece or two of Ricardo for dinner.

Oh yes. The chicken is totally named Ricardo.

There was something specific my subconscious self wanted me to do with Ricardo. I’ve been craving something. Problem was, I didn’t know what. And when I caught myself looking at recipes with curry in them, I thought… maybe I’m craving some chicken curry? But that seemed way too obvious, so I moved on.

Then I got home from work, and saw the buttermilk sitting in my refrigerator. Why did I buy buttermilk? I don’t drink the stuff.

Hmm. ...

Chicken.Curry.Buttermilk.

I bet I can do something with that.

Now that I’ve mentioned how much I wanted to use curry powder a few times, I’ll go ahead and tell you: I used Penzey's Singapore Seasoning for this instead because, well… I LOVE their Singapore Seasoning. Since they have quite a few ingredients in common (coriander, cumin, garlic, onion, tumeric, ginger, cloves) I do NOT consider this cheating.

And my craving?It’s gone.

Olive oil

1 Whole chicken, cut into pieces (I removed the skin and most of the visible fat. Damn health concsciousness!) You can also just subsitute about 6 or 7 bone-in chicken thighs.

In a large skillet (that you can cover with a lid) brown your chicken pieces in the olive oil; remove the chicken and add the carrots. After about 3 or 4 minutes, add the onions and garlic and sauté until the onion is crisp-tender. Add the ginger, mustard seeds and cumin. Cook until the mustard seeds "pop" - this is so much fun, that I hereby vow that I'm going to cook with my mustard seeds more often.

Add the tumeric and Singapore Seasoning powder, and stir your now very yellow concoction for about 2 minutes so that everything starts to meld. Is it a sign of my geekiness that I can't think of the word "meld" without thinking of Spock? And then getting a little turned on?

Add the chicken broth and buttermilk and stir some more, just until it begins to think about simmering. Put the chicken back in the skillet, cover, and simmer , stirring it every so often, for about 40 minutes or until the chicken is done (Harmful bacteria was not an ingredient in this recipe!).

When the chicken starts simmering, start cooking the basmati rice. If you're lucky they'll be finished at the same time. Serve the chicken over the rice. If you really want to treat yourself, make some naan to go with it, but...I was just too lazy today!

Sunday, November 4, 2007

A few months ago, a friend of mine gave me a VERY LARGE log of frozen ground venison. He also gave me a 6 pound venison roast. After the roast - finally! - thawed out, it made an incredible meal. But the ground meat has been buried in my freezer ever since. Part of the reason is that he wasn't sure if it was sausage or ground meat. It wasn't marked on the outside, and he couldn't remember what his friend (the hunter) had told him.Saturday, I thought of a way to use it that would be ok with either option: lasagna.

But I only needed one pan of lasagna, and I had about 3 or 4 pounds of meat. Frozen solid, which meant that it was all or nothing. So I made a bunch of different rice/meat casseroles (details later). And one very yummy looking lasagna.

I can never remember what order things go into a lasagna. A layer of sauce underneath the noodles? How many layers do I really need? The ricotta goes on top of the noodles, but aren't the noodles supposed to have sauce on both sides? Is it ok if I just mix it all up and bake it? Can I go back to experimenting with my new canner now?In the end, I pour another glass of wine and just start putting things in a pan.

So, every time I make one of these suckers, the layers are probably in different orders. And every time, it tastes fantastic.I used a 9x9 inch pan, so you have to be creative with the noodles. Being creative in the middle of making something, inevitably calls for another glass of wine. It's a good thing we found a sale this week.

Venison Lasagna

1 pound ground venison (or other meat)

1 medium onion, chopped in big-ish pieces

1 green bell pepper, chopped in big-ish pieces

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 pint tomato sauce (I used homemade, which has a ton of herbs in it already)

1/2 pound button mushrooms, sliced

as many lasagna noodles as you need for your pan and your layers (I had 9 I think)

1 1/2 cups cottage cheese

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375FBegin cooking lasagna noodles til their as soft or firm as you like - I tend to under-cook them, because this sucker's going to go in the oven.

Cook the venison in a skillet until done; drain in a colander and then transfer to a large bowl. Try to leave some grease in the pan. Sauté the onions, garlic and pepper. Add to the venison.

Sauté the mushrooms, being careful not to over-cook them. Add the mushrooms to the venison. Pour the tomato sauce over the venison mixture and stir until it's all mixed up and you're ready to just grab a spoon instead of going to the trouble of building a lasagna.

If it's too dry for you, you can add some plain canned tomato sauce. I like mine chunky, though, so I rarely have to do that. Taste your mix, and decide if it needs any salt, pepper or whatever seasonings you like to taste. I put in a little more basil, because in my world there is never enough basil.

In a separate bowl, mix the ricotta, Parmesan and cottage cheeses with a little fresh ground black pepper to make it look interesting. This stuff is awesome eaten with a spoon. Or on a Triscuit. Or even in lasagna.

OK, now the fun begins. I *think* this is the order I put things together this time.

Get your 9 inch square pan and spray some cooking spray on it.Put a layer of lasagna noodles. Mine were too long, so I let them curl up the sides of the pan - so it'll hold all the goodies that are about to get added.Add half of the ricotta mixture in dollops all over the noodles, then spread it evenly around.Put about 1/3 of your sauce/venison mix even over the top.

Get another layer of noodles. This time, I cut about 1/3 of the length off so that the noodles would fit in the pan.Dollop the rest of the ricotta mixture on the noodles and spread it evenly.Put half of the remaining tomato/venison mix evenly across the top.

Do one final layer of noodles. At this point, I only had one whole noodle left and I cut it to fit the pan. Then I used the pieces I had saved to cover the top. I wish I could brag that I had planned it this way from the beginning, but in reality...I started freaking out back at the 2nd layer of noodles that I didn't have enough cooked. Cutting them was my lazy way of getting out of boiling another pot of water. Because, you know, boiling water is so darn hard.

Back to the lasagna...Put your patchwork noodle pieces on top.Spread the rest of your tomato/venison goodness on top.Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese across the top.

The lasagna will probably be bulging out the top of the pan at this point, so put it on a baking sheet (with sides) to catch the juices that are going to bubble over. Loosely tent a piece of foil over the top, and put it in the oven for 35-40 minutes. If you want your cheese to be browned and bubbly on top, take the foil off for the last ten minutes. If it still doesn't get bubbly enough for you, turn the broiler on.

After it cooled, I froze this to feed to my out of town guests in a couple of weeks. I'll be making a vegetarian version next weekend to go with it. I still don't know what'll be in that one.

I've never frozen a baked lasagna before, so this is an experiment. It sure smelled good coming out of the oven, though:

Friday, November 2, 2007

My sister found a great deal on a set of canning equipment a couple of weeks ago, and neither one of us even tried to resist. A 10 Qt pressure cooker/canner for $25? Count me in.Thus embarks the great Canning Season of 2006.

Now, it’s really past the time I could be canning anything from my garden. The green tomato salsa from a few weeks ago is the last of the fresh produce from my garden this season.

But last Saturday, The Professor saw a seedless watermelon at the grocery store. And he wanted one last watermelon for the year. So what to do with the rind, other than make watermelon rind pickles?

My grandmother made these, and as I was growing up, they were always available at her house. None of my family got the recipe (that we can find), but there’s still a great aunt out there who may have it. I haven’t given up. But last weekend, I had to just hunt around the ‘nets and do something on my own. We haven’t cracked them open yet, but I’m going to wait for my grandmother’s recipe to post anything. Besides, my first canning trial resulted in a pint of broken pickles. Not exactly something to brag about on my blog.

Then, the next day, we came across a farmer selling the last of the season’s tomatoes. Yes, in the Deep South, you still get tomatoes at the end of October. So I bought 3 pounds, made up some tomato sauce and canned 3 pints worth. I had just enough left over to toss with some penne for dinner, and we are going to have some incredible pastas in the next couple of months.

So, I have no recipes for you today. Tomorrow, I’m going to make venison lasagna, so you’ll have to hold out for that. In the meantime, here’s a shot of my stove while I was preparing to can the sauce: